Guess how much today’s kids are spending on prom?

Spending on the annual high school ritual of the prom continues to outpace inflation and grew for the second straight year, hitting an average of $1,139 per family in 2013. (Getty)

Just like the cost of gas, milk and San Francisco real estate, the price of prom is going through the roof. The average prom bill this year will be $1,139, according to a study conducted by Visa. That’s over a $300 increase from two years ago.

What are kids spending their money on? That perfect $500 dress, a pair of heels, tux rental, limousine rides and party buses, dinner at a white-tablecloth restaurant, a corsage for her, a boutonniere for him, tickets to get into the actual event, a French manicure, a Brazilian blow, leg waxings, spray tans…and the list goes on and on.

“Dresses are more elaborate,” Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group, told the Associated Press. “They are now buying two pairs of shoes, one to go to prom and one to dance in.”

All I can say is that my mother wouldn’t approve.

Back in 1992, only weeks before graduating from high school, I was giddy with excitement walking around the campus of my soon-to-be alma mater. A boy had actually asked me to prom.

My mom didn’t share the same enthusiasm. I went to school in the South Bay and my prom was at the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco and this meant students would be spending the night in the city in hotel rooms. Many were riding to the hotel in limousines. And there was sure to be partying, drugs, alcohol.

My mom didn’t approve. She spent her prom night twirling around the dance floor set up in her high school auditorium. The teachers were all there as chaperones. She danced to the Beatles, watched the prom king and queen get crowned and was probably home well before midnight. This was the 1960s.

The prom of the 1990s, in her opinion, was unnecessarily excessive and expensive. But I was generally a rule follower as a teenager and she trusted me and agreed to let me go—though this didn’t mean that she was going to entirely give in to all the lavishness. When I came home from a trip to the mall with a girlfriend and told her that I found the perfect $199 dress, she told me, “No way!” She borrowed a black velvet dress from a friend of hers for me to wear. I was disappointed but looking back I was probably one of the more tastefully dressed girls at my dance.

But not all parents are willing to tell their kids no—and the pressure in the 21st century to have that designer dress is high. “You don’t want your kid to be the only kid who doesn’t have what the other kids have,” Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University, told the Associated Press.=.

Dress: David’s Bridal, with 300 stores selling prom dresses, told the Associated Press the average dress is $170. Cache, a popular mall store for dresses, told KCRA that the most expensive dress in the store is $598.

The Visa survey results are a result of phone conversations with 3,000 parents of prom-age high school students. The survey revealed some interesting regional trends. The Northeast led the nation in spending, with the Midwest spending the least.

Northeastern families will spend an average of $1,528;

Southern families will spend an average of $1,203;

Western families will spend an average of $1,079; and

Midwestern families will spend an average of $722.

Parents on average covered 59 percent of the cost while teens picked up 41 percent.

One troubling statistic is that parents surveyed who fell in the lower income brackets (less than $50,000 a year) plan to spend more than the national average, $1,245, while parents who make over $50,000 will spend an average of $1,129. Additionally, single parents plan to spend $1,563, almost double the amount that married parents plan to spend at $770.

“Prom has devolved into a competition to crown the victor of high school society, but teens shouldn’t be trying to keep up with the Kardashians,” said Nat Sillin Visa’s head of US Financial Education. “The prom is an opportunity to teach teens how to budget. If they want that sparkling dress, fancy dinner, and limo ride, this is the opportunity to set a budget and save.”

How much did you spend on your prom—share the year and the price? Does $1,000 for 2013 sound reasonable or too high?